Saturday, October 25, 2008

Obama rally breaks out at McCain speech

McCain and his supporters had the floor -- or the field, anyway -- at Durango High School's football stadium on Friday night. But Obama supporters were happy taking the street and parking lot to hold their own rally.

Hundreds of Obama supporters lined North Main Avenue, carrying signs and wearing Obama t-shirts distributed by Democratic Party staff and volunteers. Centered around the traffic light in front of the school, they chanted and sang to the honks, cheers, and curses from passing traffic.

Police and Secret Service (one Durango police officer warned a couple on cruiser bicycles that if they rode on the sidewalk in front of the school, they'd be tackled by the Secret Service) stood in clusters around the area watching the action, forming a line only when the crowd moved toward the entrance where McCain's motorcade arrived.

Meanwhile, in the DHS parking lot, a cluster of Obama supporters yelled slogans and hooted toward the line snaking slowly into the stadium.

The event didn't likely change the course of the election; still, all in all, it was an interesting and unusual -- and exciting -- occurrence for Durango. And it was a great thing for the students and kids to see -- the town getting passionate, which ever side the rallying is for, and playing a part in national politics.

There were no arrests at either rally, reports the Durango Herald, although there was some jeering directed from each camp to the other. One 14-year-old girl in an Obama t-shirt reported being told by some McCain supporters that she might be swayed if she listened, while others chastised her for being there at all.

And then there was one group that asked her, "Why do you think they call it the 'White' House?"

About Me

I came West from Boston to ski bum for a season in 1983, and forgot to
go back. But I didn't forget how to be a bum. I now live in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains
with my wife and our two teen-aged kids. I am the author of three
books about living and parenting in the modern American West: The Monkey Wrench Dad (2008),Why I'm Against It All (2003), and
A Wilder Life: Essays from Home (1995).